


e dolore magna gloria

by minorthirds, shoutz



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.0 Concurrent, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aymeric's New in Town... And It Gets Worse, Drama, Emotional Incompetence, F/M, Imprisonment, Lore Exploration, M/M, Masturbation as Therapy, Multi, Named Female Warrior of Light, Royally Fucking It Up, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:00:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24814966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minorthirds/pseuds/minorthirds, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoutz/pseuds/shoutz
Summary: —but don't tell anyone what you saw here.And through it all the same voice, the one that nestled in his spine and spoke ofrageandvengeance, that he denied in thought and action and even inmemoryuntil its will met and matched his own, andwon free.This is what you wanted,it said.Don’t you see?This is why you called me.The plight of her comrades has drawn the Warrior of Light to the First.In her absence, her enemies are emboldened; her allies, disheartened.They say that on the cusp of a new Calamity, a new Warrior will rise...But if a hero ismade,who is it that does the making?
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Estinien Wyrmblood, Aymeric de Borel/Warrior of Light, Aymeric de Borel/Warrior of Light/Estinien Wyrmblood
Comments: 31
Kudos: 50





	1. philia, part i

**Author's Note:**

> so the only explanation either of us have for this is me (minorthirds) sharing a video of blake ritson's line work for dark souls 2 as the character royal sorcerer navlaan and the book club subsequently exploding
> 
> and in its wake we discovered we had compatible brainworms. so we bring them to you, as a treat.
> 
> :)

The first sound of which he became aware, filtered through the weary drowsiness that clung to him as he roused, already lifting himself to sitting afore his eyes cleared enough to make out shapes in the gloomy room, was that of indistinct muttering that lingered in the back of his mind like the after-burning circle of the Coerthan sun seared into his closed eyes.

The second was of the rattling of the thick iron chains that shifted and spilled as he sat up, that bound his wrists together firmly in front of him — that drove from his attention any preoccupation with whispered words he could not understand, in favor of probing searchingly at the holes in his memory.

A groan, so soft that at first he did not realize it came from his own mouth as he shifted.

How came he to be here? Like this?

For that matter, where  _ was  _ he?

The dark silhouettes in the darker room resolved themselves slowly under his gaze into miscellaneous and decrepit crates and sacks and other sundry goods, and at the far end, where he sensed the door should be, glinted metal bars running ceiling-to-floor to separate the greater portion of the room from its entrance.

A dim recollection, then — that of Lord Hien expressing concern and trepidation, gripped as he was with the certainty that cornered and thwarted conscripts who chose then to throw their lot in with the Alliance may not, under the guidance of their superior officers, have done so with the purest of intentions.

Lord Hien had many a reason to distrust the sellers of secrets.

None, therefore, could find fault in the fashioning of makeshift holding cells in the more permanent installations in the forward camp at Ghimlyt, in the clay-brick buildings that had stood before the Alliance came and would stand, Twelve willing, long after they had gone. Makeshift both in name and in fact, given the limitations of their resources.

‘Twas clear to him now that it was within one of these buildings that he awoke, with vague recollections and shackles upon his wrists.

Yet for what reason? For what purpose, what _ necessity  _ could the Alliance have been made to bind and imprison one of their own — Lord Commander of the Temple Knights (and other assorted Ishgardian irregulars), Lord Speaker of the House of Lords, Ishgard’s own appointed representative to the high council of Alliance leaders and generals?

A sigh filled Aymeric de Borel’s weary frame, then, slow in the drawing of breath and slow in the releasing of it, as he laid his head back against the cold clay bricks and closed his eyes.

Creating a disturbance would be worse than unbecoming for a man of his station, worse than the insult of imprisonment by several orders of magnitude, and though he as of yet had no answer as to  _ why  _ the Alliance had chosen this course of action, he understood the thoughts and the hearts of his fellows well enough that it had not been decided upon in idleness. He also believed that, should it come down to it, his cooperation would do much to clear his name of whatever transgression of which he was accused.

Evidently the answers he so desired were not contingent upon his own knowledge and understanding. He would have to wait for them — for no other recourse remained to him but to trust in the wisdom of his comrades.

  
  


Sleep came to him in fitful and short moments, yet even with the collection of them he did not seem to grow less weary — it was a soul-deep exhaustion, one utterly foreign to him, never felt and only scarce recognized from the gazes of the harrowed and the broken, the widows and the wounded left with no comfort but only the cold knowledge that their great sacrifices in the waging of war had been in the service of futility.

His last clear recollection was that of his return to the front lines, not long from the Warrior of Light’s bedside before the news met him that she was  _ gone  _ — hale, to be sure, but departed for lands unreachable. In search of her comrades, yes, but leaving Eorzea  _ bereft _ .

The burden placed upon her was not  _ fair,  _ not in any sense of the word. But had they much choice but to rely on her, when the realm’s enemies could not even be restrained by the finality of the grave? When her power was such that—

“ _ Ngh, _ ” Aymeric groaned, cradling his temple with a palm; a searing-sharp pain like the jagged point of a lance pulsed there, and he gritted his teeth against it, the moments dragging long as the aftershocks of it ran down his spine with the speed of forking lightning.

The episode came upon him swiftly but left with much trepidation, lingering as would the last spring snowfall, and only at last, when the ache of his mind was but a memory, did he let his hand fall, distantly thankful that the manacles which bound him were possessed of enough links that he did so freely. A small sort of comfort, but one that convinced him that whoever had bound him had done so more as a gesture than out of genuine fear and concern.

‘Twas passing strange — that he was imprisoned alone and in the dark whilst piercing headaches seemed mere thoughts away, of course, but most of all that he could make out little noise from the camp outside. Were the buildings truly so sound? Or had the Empire not meant to preclude a renewed assault on their position when they ambushed—

This wave of pain drove him to the dirt-strewn floor, there to blindly curl into himself; if the last were a lance surely this burned as sharply as Ser Charibert’s flames in the bowels of the Vault blooming white on black behind the press of his eyelids. His ears rang and his hands numbed and all ceased to be but for the ever-present agony, as deep and consuming as if his very  _ aether itself  _ ached.

Years or mayhap solely minutes later — were he to be told the former, he would have to feign surprise, such was the disorientation of another  _ episode _ — the pitched noise in his ears began to subside, giving way instead to snatches of a murmured conversation just barely loud enough for him to hear.

Aymeric sat up, with a sigh and a shake of his head, distracted from ruminating on his situation by the effort of straining to make out words; the pair, as there were two voices, seemed to be approaching on just the other side of the wall closest to him. They meant, therefore, to pass by the building, and his window of opportunity to glean some understanding of what had befallen him was small.

“—says ‘e fought like a demon on the battlefield,” one was saying, and Aymeric caught the Ala Mhigan brogue of the first; a Resistance soldier, like as not. “‘Should’ve seen ‘im,’ the lad keeps tellin’ me. Dove right in without a thought! If we got a chargin’ Bull, the Ishgardians got themselves a whole bloody dragon.”

_ Estinien.  _ He could be speaking of none other — but what feats had he accomplished, to earn such effusive praise? Aymeric could and would dispense it himself, of course, and for far less, but to hear the soldier talk…

“Y’heard what they’re saying, right?” The Ala Mhigan’s voice had dipped into a conspiratorial whisper, and Aymeric found himself holding his breath, willing his heartbeat to slow and to quieten, the better to not miss a word.

“They say he’s another Warrior of Light, if you can believe it. Like this is Carteneau all over again. Like there’s another  _ Calamity  _ upon us. I reckon those rumors’ve got a point.”

“What,” a second voice responded, similarly accented but in a higher register, “that them tinheads came and stole all the crystals from the healers’ tent? How d’you think they managed that, huh? Just struttin’ on in and shovin’ ‘em into hempen sacks, the way you did to yer sister’s—”

“If you don’t shut up about that, by Rhalgr, I’ll—”

The voices grew distant, further from his hearing than he could make out, and Aymeric released a long and slow breath, his chest aching with the effort of keeping it captive.

Little and less of what he had gleaned explained his  _ predicament,  _ but he was comforted by the knowledge that Estinien was about — though they had seen each other but recently, ‘twas the plight of the Warrior of Light that weighed more heavily on each of their minds and each of their arms during the encounter, heavily enough that Aymeric had missed his moment to admonish Estinien for the recklessness of attempting to fend off Elidibus in Zenos’s body  _ alone. _

News on that front would not go awry, either, given that he had not received a briefing after — he paused to tread lightly around the space in his memory, sensing for a reason he could not explain that ruminating too intensely upon them had been the source of the…  _ episodes. _

The sensations were… eerily familiar. Even if he could not remember having before experienced them in such brutal intensity.

In the midst of his thoughts he had risen to pace, the links of his manacles chiming softly as he did; he was still  _ weary,  _ but a nervous, restless energy demanded to be expressed, one that continued to build with each hour he spent behind these bars with nary an explanation. A nervous, restless energy that curled in the base of his spine, whispering to him unfound and unwanted thoughts of  _ escape,  _ of  _ rage,  _ of  _ vengeance;  _ ‘twas a simple affair to dismiss them at the first, certain it was the unfamiliarity of the situation which provoked them.

He had feared the camp taken by Imperial forces, for want of more information, and it was at least a small relief that such was not the case. Had he been languishing in gaol while his men fought and died for the sake of the realm — the realm he bid them defend while he lifted nary a finger in _ their  _ defense — he would never have forgiven himself. ‘Twas well, then, that circumstances had not yet grown so dire that—

The heavy noise of the thick wooden door slamming into the adjacent wall startled him; Aymeric froze in place as the metallic friction of armor upon chainmail upon more armor heralded the arrival of a visitor — his first visitor.

“You’re awake,” Estinien said curtly.

The chill in his words set Aymeric to shivering. Long had he known Estinien’s temper, but he had apparently grown unused to bearing its brunt, and his coat had never been much protection from the winter.

Aymeric’s mouth opened with a customary good-humored, mildly-barbed response at the tip of his tongue, but his teeth came together to bite it back.

Estinien had known he’d be here. Had seen him before he had awoken.

Had left him to  _ languish. _

Aymeric’s eyes must have sharpened, flashed, for he saw the reflection of them in Estinien’s, ever too honest, having relied overmuch on the mask of steel and station as a bulwark against the piercing gazes of the Ishgardian nobility.

Like this, in some silent contest of wills, they stared at one another, gazes unrelenting; ‘twas a long stretch before Estinien swallowed, the flesh of his neck rippling with the movement, and looked away.

“Here,” said the dragoon, his voice curiously thick as he tossed down a hemp-tied parcel, the soft  _ thump  _ of its collision with one of the steel bars that separated the two of them seeming to resound in the room.

Aymeric looked between the package and its deliverer — his dearest friend, who now seemed as distant to him as a masked Garlean soldier standing across the battlefield.

_ Sod it,  _ Aymeric thought, the pain of Estinien’s rejection raw in his breast. His pride was not worth the gulf it invited. “Estinien,” he began, “what—”

Estinien’s upraised hand ground Aymeric’s admission of confusion to a halt, more in surprise at the gesture than out of a desire to obey it. His dark eyes did not meet Aymeric’s own, as though he could not  _ bear  _ to — or as though the focus of his attentions lay elsewhere.

“Not now,” Estinien said, and his tone brooked no complaint.

Swallowing hard against the rise of emotion in his chest, Aymeric nodded mutely.

Estinien would — he had to believe — be forthcoming when he felt the time was right.  _ Had  _ to believe it, for if he had lost his closest friend, his most stalwart ally, for some reason wholly unknown to him not  _ days  _ after she had—

A throb at his temple, this time accompanied by a swell of nausea, had Aymeric bracing himself upon the bars of his cell, lest the floor shift beneath him along with his stomach. Only a moment after it had struck, it receded, but a moment was enough; when Aymeric looked up again Estinien was gone, as swiftly as if he had  _ fled,  _ and only the muffled sound of the door settling in its jamb remained in his wake, remained as farewell.

  
  


If only combing his mind for an explanation as to the predicament he found himself in didn’t drive from him his wits and leave him prostrate upon the cold clay-brick floor, he would have been much less irate at the prospect of having the truth  _ kept  _ from him. Animated by a redoubled burst of nervous energy, Aymeric had resumed his pacing from earlier, ruminating; if he was not permitted to ponder overlong on the gaps in his memory, then he would satisfy himself by piecing together the disparate details he had managed to collect.

The remnants of Estinien’s gift lay upon the ground; simple rations of jerked meat and a canteen of water, which had not gone amiss, and in fact instilled a sort of calming familiarity given his years of acquaintance with a soldier’s common fare.

His working theory — and he was quite proud of it, given the circumstances — was some manner of  _ coup,  _ some accusation leveled against him with its avaricious intent shrouded under the fog of war. If Estinien was involved in his defense, ‘twould well explain his distraction, his eagerness to be on his way, as it would jeopardize both of their positions for Estinien to be seen openly colluding with Aymeric.

The theory also accounted for the notable silence of the other members of the Alliance, who must needs cultivate an impression of neutrality, as such would be the only tenable position if his own quality of character was the subject of contention.

He grew weary of pondering the circumstances, but little else remained to him; the circumstances, and the whispers of crystals, of an Ishgardian Warrior of Light…

Aymeric supposed ‘twas only meet that, just as he moved to consider the pieces that did not fit the first coherent picture he had assembled, a second visitor should chance to stumble in and promptly make of his educated suppositions the mere ramblings and wild gesticulations of a fool.

In a much gentler and more civilized manner did his guest announce their presence, a brief knock on the door before it was opened, as if to allow him some time to compose himself; the light outside was so wan one could not call it “light” and expect to be understood, which came as little surprise given the eternal gloom of Ghimlyt’s skies.

Thus Aymeric’s eyes did not have to adjust much to recognize the yellow and furred collar of Hien’s customary coat; though while he looked directly at the samurai, the samurai looked back with a blink of confusion, a heartbeat before a smile stretched across his face.

“I was wondering where you had gotten off to, my friend,” Hien said with a high-spirited laugh that rang out over the sound of Aymeric’s carefully constructed theory falling to pieces before him.

“Lord Hien,” Aymeric greeted him, if faintly, swallowing against the dryness in his throat at the realization that even the Alliance knew not the reason he was here — or even that he was here at  _ all. _

_ How can that be?  _ No answer remained to him… save that Estinien—

Hien came to stand before him, just across the bars, with his arms folded and the grin unflinching. “Far be it from me to question a man’s, ahem,  _ taste,  _ but when Ser Estinien petitioned me for use of the facilities, I had not expected to find…” Hien’s hand cupped the back of his neck as he glanced away, a faint flush beginning to rise upon his face.

Aymeric gave a start, a sensation of shock and embarrassment rising and closing his throat before he could form the words he meant to speak in response, and instead he coughed, the better to not stammer in his haste to preserve his reputation.

“Ahem,” he cleared his throat finally, inviting Hien’s abashed gaze. “Lord Hien, I fear there has been a…  _ misunderstanding. _ I’ve not the faintest what Estinien means by this,” Aymeric’s mouth set into a deep curve, bothered more than he would like to admit by the implications, “but I assure you that it was not voluntary.”

At the least, not voluntary in any recollection Aymeric himself held… which amounted to precious little.

“Ah,” Hien said, recrossing his arms. His jaw firmed. Try as he might, Aymeric failed to interpret the expression. “Deep concern would be my guess, then.”

Aymeric could not stop his eyebrows from rising, unsure as he was to what Hien alluded.

“I daresay not one of us had taken you for the type to rush headlong into such odds, but glad am I that you did.” Hien smiled again, this time in gratitude rather than celebration. “Yugiri was most adamant that I share with you her thanks. Many of the shinobi in that unit have served for even longer than she, and to lose them to false intelligence…”

Hien took no heed of Aymeric’s silence. “Speaking of, I should be interested to know how you came by  _ yours,  _ if our best shinobi were taken in by lies and tricks.”

Still Aymeric did not answer; in fact it seemed as if he had not heard the words at all. They washed over him without comprehension, and his visage remained blank. A handful of heartbeats of silence passed between them, and Hien had just moved as if to reach out to him when Aymeric suddenly stumbled back, a groan of pain deep in his throat as he doubled over and clutched at his head.

“Aymeric!”

The cry of concern and Hien’s lunge forward dissolved into color and impression as the gut-wrenching pull finally, finally won out and he tumbled back into memory.

_ Blood. _

The smell of it, the taste of it, rich and foul, the  _ thrum  _ of it as his heart hammered in uneven staccato, alive with  _ thrill —  _ not the fierce relief of the dance of survival but  _ brutal joy— _

His sword rent armor and tore flesh and his heart  _ leaped. _

And through it all the same voice, the one that nestled in his spine and spoke of  _ rage  _ and  _ vengeance,  _ that he denied in thought and action and even in  _ memory  _ until its will met and matched his own, and  _ won free. _

_ This is what you wanted,  _ it said.  _ Don’t you see? _

_ This is why you called me. _


	2. philia, part ii

There are a scant few things Estinien knows for certain. But even still — or perhaps in light of their scarcity — he clings to these things as a child would cling to a favorite toy; he knows full well that there are more important things on which to focus, more pressing matters to which he must attend, but knowing these few things grants him the strength to face the rest.

In recent days, that list of comforts has grown concerningly small.

The first thing he knows is certain but relatively less important: that Nidhogg is gone from this world, and his damned eyes besides. Estinien had seen to this matter himself, after that maniac had used them to bind himself to Shinryu. His fight, his self-appointed sacrifice to make with which he had dispensed entirely — though not without struggle, not without more sacrifice and more pain to compound the legacy of hurt it has inflicted.

The second thing he knows — well, _knew_ — for certain is that the Warrior of Light protects this world unfalteringly, with her each and every breath and action. Though with her abrupt disappearance in the midst of a war that continues to rage, that truth has been torn from his grasp to leave him floundering. But not quite hopeless.

The final comfort, his last bastion against the world and its woes, tells him that Ser Aymeric de Borel of Ishgard remains his most stalwart ally, his sacred confidant, the one man who can both know him and be known so fully by him. Without risk, without pain, without uncertainty.

But now, the last of these that remains to him is Nidhogg’s demise.

He watches in disbelief as it unfolds upon the fields of Ghimlyt. False plans had been laid at their feet and they had been foolish enough to walk into the trap themselves, though Estinien knew that catastrophe was at the very least _less likely_ once Aymeric and a small force of Temple Knights dispatched to their aid. Or so he would have believed.

Aymeric stands stalwart before a wall of adversaries without a hint of trepidation, armed only with Naegling and his armor that truly does not protect him as much as it should. Smoke rises in plumes to choke the air. The shouts of a hundred men hit Estinien’s ears but they soon fade into the white noise of war. Bodies are haphazardly strewn across the ground, allied and enemy both, as the Lord Commander of Ishgard maneuvers between them. Upright, though others are not so fortunate.

Estinien watches his shoulders heave with a breath. Another. Aymeric adjusts his grip on his sword and Estinien can only watch from his place in the shadows, waiting for him to retreat, to run for safety, to hopefully have some value for his own life and _leave._ Watching with the hopes that his help is not needed, but to be able to provide it if it is.

His heart drops as Aymeric darts into the throng. He cuts the Garlean soldiers down as if they’re tall grass in a field and his sword is a scythe. One by one, even two by two — several bodies cleaved with a single swipe of a mighty blue blade, rending enemies asunder without remorse and without mercy. And while Estinien knows they are enemies and in doing this Aymeric is servicing the greater good of Eorzea, such brutality and recklessness is uncharacteristic. Frighteningly so. Especially to Estinien, the man who knows Aymeric perhaps better than he knows himself. And for that reason alone — completely unrelated to any other emotions he might have in seeing Aymeric bloodthirsty and ruthless — Estinien watches.

The Garlean front line thins. Scant few manage to strike true against him, before they are summarily cut down for their sin. Soldiers begin to retreat on their own volition, until their commanders order a more formal withdrawal, but this does not stop Aymeric. His sword slices through their backs almost easier than it had their fronts.

Eventually, the living escape him and nothing surrounds him but death. Yet even this does not quench his thirst for blood. He straightens, heaving labored breaths, seeking another target. After a moment his eyes catch on a Garlean soldier as they crawl to safety, bleeding profusely from a gash across their leg that nearly severed the limb.

Estinien watches, horrified, as Aymeric makes his slow approach.

 _Enough of this._ This battle needn’t become such a brutal slaughter, not with their enemies retreating and their own forces in the process of withdrawing. Estinien knows this, and while he had hoped Aymeric would know this as well, the world grows more and more curious without the Warrior of Light present to suss out its boundless mystery.

_“Aymeric!”_

Estinien’s voice carries across the field. Aymeric turns to him as he makes his approach, but does not stop walking towards the injured soldier.

“Enough! They’ve surrendered!” It’s not a complete lie. Every Garlean squadron on the field has either retreated of their own volition or has been ordered to retreat. As much is plain in their movements. “The fight is over!”

That stays his feet. He turns to Estinien to regard him properly, blue blade almost entirely covered in red. It stains his armor in places but Estinien knows enough to not worry if it once belonged to him or someone else. “Over?” he asks, so strangely calm despite the chaos around him. His expression mirrors this tranquility, and it would be believable if not for the spatter of blood across the rise of his cheek. “Estinien, for what they have done to the people of Eorzea, how could you think they deserve the _mercy_ of surrender?”

“Do you hear yourself?” he shouts, desperate. “There is no need for more bloodshed here.”

Aymeric turns back towards the retreating soldier. “In shedding this blood, I can prevent them from wreaking more havoc upon people undeserving of war.”

Estinien runs forward, stands between Aymeric and his prey. Plants two hands on his shoulders, stops him bodily. Searches two bright blue eyes for some trace of his friend, some trace of the man he knew. Pieces remain, to be sure, but… He’s different. Different in a way that Estinien cannot place other than an instinctual understanding of Aymeric as a person. This is not the Lord Commander who had been unanimously elevated to the Speaker of the House of Lords. This is not the man who brokered peace with dragons and ended a war that spanned generations. This is not the gentle soul who feeds and names the stray cats of the Brume, who took one into his own house after it followed him there one night, who cares for that creature even in the midst of a war.

“Don’t you see?” Aymeric says. “We can end this.”

If they had not shown mercy to the dragons and heretics for all they wrought upon Ishgard, the population would not trust its government to lead them without fearing their own demise in turn. It is the logic that so led Aymeric’s hand in the wake of Thordan’s rule, of the Dragonsong War and all that came after it. To see him to blind to it here, so menacing and callous towards men who do not deserve swords in their backs as they flee, further solidifies the sheer wrongness of the situation in Estinien’s mind.

But he could not possibly explain all of this, not in a way that this version of Aymeric would care to listen and understand.

Instead his judgment is swift. He darts forward, and while Aymeric raises the hilt of his blade to block, he is unable to stop the blunt end of his lance from slamming into his temple. Estinien winces but it was necessary; Aymeric’s body falls limp onto the ground, unconscious.

His mind races with concern after concern, question after question, but he has not the time to entertain them all here, not in the midst of a battlefield upon which the blood has barely dried. Lucia will no doubt seek him out soon, now that the bulk of the fighting has ceased, but will she understand the urgency? The uncertainty and its implications?

So instead he scoops Aymeric’s form into his arms and carries him away in search of someone who will understand the stakes, and perhaps more importantly, his instinctive need to see Aymeric returned to his full self.

* * *

Estinien deposits the body in the cell with as much care as he can manage. Lord Hien had been kind enough to relinquish one of his own cells designated for use by his Shinobi and the Alliance at large. The one Alliance leader he can trust with discretion, other than Aymeric— a realization that smarts like nothing else.

Other than Aymeric, what does he have? Without the Warrior of Light, without Nidhogg hounding his heels, without Aymeric, _what does he have?_

He shakes himself of doubt, lets it roll from his shoulders. There are more pressing problems to solve than his own panic. Aymeric groans from his place on the ground, and Estinien winces. He’s enduring the arduous process of waking up after being knocked cold, and currently imprisoned by the man who did so — a man who should be a friend.

 _Is_ a friend.

Before Estinien can make a mistake he removes himself and locks the cell. It gives Aymeric enough time to wake, to push off the ground and regard his captor as the lock slides shut with a metallic click.

“Estinien,” Aymeric gasps, hoarse, and it hurts more than he’s willing to admit.

“None of that.”

 _“Please.”_ Aymeric approaches the bars and it takes every ilm of Estinien’s self-control to deny him his unspoken wish. “You cannot keep me in here while my men suffer and die on the field—”

“And I cannot let you go out there and do _that_ to the backs of more retreating enemies!”

“They were bloody _Garleans,_ Estinien! Do not try to tell me they did not deserve it—”

“They were _retreating!_ They posed no more threat to you or your men and you _slaughtered_ them regardless.”

“And I would do it again.” The words hang in the air for a few silent, tense, horrible moments. “They deserve no less for what they have wrought.”

Estinien has spent most of his life scrutinizing Aymeric, enough so that his speech patterns, his personality, even the defiant shine in his bright eyes— the entirety of his character is known to him. Every piece of him, every quirk and habit and minute detail collected and memorized through decades of friendship… But it would not take that much knowledge of the man to know that this merciless persona is _wrong._

“Estinien,” he tries again. His hands come to rest on the bars and the chains binding them together clank against the metal. He steps closer, close enough that Estinien can smell the blood and sweat and grime of war on his skin.

They regard each other for a few careful moments. Captor and captive. Estinien narrows his eyes and— 

_Oh._ It seems his instincts did not deceive him after all.

His realization distracts him just enough for Aymeric to slip his hands through the bars and fist in his collar. Before Estinien can react, those blood-stained hands pull him into a bruising kiss between the bars.

The seconds pass as years, as decades, suspended in a single moment.

Aymeric is hungry and makes no secret of his lust as his eager lips meet Estinien’s own, though they in turn are shocked into stunned passivity. A noise sounds from deep in Aymeric’s throat and _oh,_ that is not something Estinien is equipped to handle.

He wants to soften, wants to surrender, wants to let him out and run away somewhere war and death cannot find them. To spirit the both of them back home, perhaps to Dravania or the Coerthan wastes, where none could possibly follow — neither man nor wretched responsibility. Safety, for once, for the both of them. After all they’ve done — all they’ve endured, _together_ — do they not deserve this mercy from the world and its horrors? Have they not earned their rest? It wouldn’t be so hard…

Nor would it be right. They both have responsibilities — responsibilities which fall to them alone to shoulder, which could not possibly be shirked to another in good conscience — and whatever is happening in Aymeric’s body and soul must be sorted before irreparable damage is done.

And so with arduous effort does Estinien wrest himself from Aymeric’s grasp, gasping and stumbling back from the cell. Aymeric remains pressed against it, watching him, lips shining.

“Estinien, _please.”_

_No._

He could not leave that holding cell fast enough.

He hears a groan of pain, a dull thump, and then silence from the other side of the wooden door separating them. And while Estinien’s instincts plead with him to turn and check on his friend, he cannot trust himself. As wrong as it feels to abandon Aymeric like this when he’s so far out of sorts, Estinien knows that lingering any longer would be disastrous for his own sanity.

But those few seconds, those few frozen moments in time when Aymeric sated a craving Estinien didn’t let himself acknowledge until then…

A horrible heat spreads from his core the more he thinks about it. A desire to turn back and make several sequential mistakes spreads with it, an animalistic ache that leads his feet into the shadows between two secluded ridges, away from the camps and their prying eyes. Sweat sticks his collar to his neck and it’s stifling enough that he tugs at it, breathing too heavily. Pointedly ignoring the strain of his trousers and his roiling emotions.

And that _damned_ kiss.

But how unforgivable would it be for him to relieve the pressure once safely hidden away? How wrong would it be to sate his needs-- for the sake of clearing his own mind, to be able to forge a plan for the path ahead? Surely a view of the situation uninhibited by base instincts and passing lust would serve him better than this turmoil.

And that _blackened, bleeding_ kiss.

His better judgment loses. One hand slips beneath the waist of his trousers and he gnaws on his lip in an attempt to stifle whatever horribly weak noises want to escape him at the first touch of skin on heated skin. The friction alone is enough to weaken his knees, to stay his hand just a few moments longer. To savor this relief, that he might better serve the cause thereafter.

_That’s all._

His hips twitch with the restraint it takes to not simply rut into his hand with reckless abandon. Such desperation, while reflective of his truest desires, he could not possibly stomach. It is one thing to want, and another entirely to _indulge._ He cedes himself enough to chase this release but any further would be intemperance for its own sake.

And so with this small concession he speeds his motions, the blessed friction of palm against cock serving to further stoke the flames churning through his core. He rests his forehead against the cool, shaded stone of the mount hiding him from view, trying so desperately not to think of Aymeric— the way his body moved as he carved through his enemies, the way his hands felt as they curled into Estinien’s tunic, the way his lips felt as they so wantonly took…

_Please._

The word as it had been gasped through Aymeric’s voice echoes through Estinien’s mind as his release crashes into him. A harsh breath tears through his lungs as he bucks into his hand, bringing his smallclothes to ruin. His eyes snap shut and stars dance behind his eyelids in the aftermath, a stunning display of the white heat spreading through his groin.

And for all his efforts, he finds his mind no clearer than before.

Estinien huffs a curse under his breath, and sets off to find some rations.

The wave of shame does not overtake him until he is safe within his tent, changed into fresh trousers. And when it hits, it hits _hard._ Talking himself in circles about it beforehand is vastly different than facing his decisions with the clarity afforded to him by hindsight and distance after the fact. He paces divots into the floor of his tent but it lends no credence to the excuses he fabricates to justify his lapse in judgment.

But as little as it may have lived up to its intended purpose, it at least provides him with some new direction in which to focus his efforts. Another distraction from the roiling emotions that drove him to that point in the first place. And bearing that in mind, he pushes past his ignominy in favor of securing some extra food and seeking Aymeric out once more.

Estinien hears Aymeric’s anxious, restless pacing long before he reaches the cell holding him. Whatever pain had brought him to unconsciousness seems to have passed, and that fact loosens one of the many knots taking residence in his chest - but there are plenty more to take its place.

He shoves the door open with perhaps too much force, loud enough to shock his captive out of his thoughtful pace. Estinien grunts an acknowledgement that could pass as a greeting, willing himself to finally look into the face of his friend, his prisoner. Familiarity has him opening his mouth to respond but apprehension and the chains binding his limbs seem to dissolve whatever clever words wanted to come out of his mouth—

_That mouth that had so desperately pressed against his own, seeking, yearning, pulses thrumming in tandem—_

Estinien swallows thickly, looks away.

“Here,” he grunts instead, tossing the food in Aymeric's general direction. It hits the ground with a thud that nearly startles him a second time. He looks between his gift and his captor with those blue eyes that show so much to the man who knows them and their tells most intimately. He begins to speak but Estinien cuts him off — an impulse granted by both his concern for his friend as well as his own inability to articulate what has transpired. In truth, Estinien knows not the best path forward. But seeing Aymeric back to himself — and with seemingly no memory of what transpired — gives him the peace of mind to begin formulating a plan, a path forward.

 _Seven blackened hells._ The Warrior of Light would know what to do. Would that she were here.

Aymeric doubles over and groans, clutching his head. Is it the same spell of pain as before? Is he reverting to whatever version of him had pulled Estinien into a searing kiss through the bars of his cell? Aether flares from Aymeric’s form, visible along the edges of his vision, though it strikes him as odd — no more nor less than all the other peculiarities that have transpired since he watched that monster on the field of battle.

Fearing the worst, Estinien flees the cell. As much as it pains him to leave Aymeric to face this pain alone, he knows he could not endure _that_ a second time.

Once safely distanced from temptation, and from the weakness borne of temptation, Estinien takes stock of what he knows. Aymeric’s aether has shifted, just slightly, just enough for Estinien’s aether-stained vision to notice. This makes itself particularly apparent when he endures those moments of pain. Not to mention the… _personality shift_ he had also undergone.

And he knows that the more he listens to that damned conviction, the more likely he is to give into it. Estinien’s Aymeric blind spot is a malm long and it leaves him so vulnerable, especially with so much at stake and so much more unknown.

But to whom can he turn? With the Warrior of Light gone and the other Scions similarly incapacitated, his list of trustworthy and qualified allies grows as scarce as his comforts. The Lalafellin women remain, if his memory serves. Kan-E-Senna has always been keen with regards to aether disturbances, but can she be trusted to exercise discretion? Can any of them?

An hour of pondering and pacing passes before he lets himself return to the cell in the hopes of finding Aymeric of sound enough mind to have a say regarding his own fate. Perhaps he can grant insight that Estinien cannot glean for himself.

He could not possibly expect the cell to be empty.

Estinien stares dumbfounded into the emptiness. The door remains locked shut, keys still hanging on the wall where he left them, yet there is no denying the vacancy before him.

Where could he have gone? More than that — _how_ could he have gone? Very few people possess the aetheric density to teleport independent of an aetheryte crystal and for all the years Estinien has known him, Aymeric has not been one of those individuals.

And so it’s with a hissed curse and boundless anxiety that Estinien leaves once more, to find the remaining Scions and, hopefully, some answers.


	3. philia, part iii

When next Aymeric awoke—rather next became aware of his surroundings and the pounding ache in his temple that threatened to follow him unto the grave—he was alone.

Once more, just as he had been at the first.

Yet unlike his first awakening, unlike the chasm of memory he could not bridge no matter how his mind quested at the edges, this time he was assaulted by foreign sensation ere his eyes had opened. As though he had awoken while in the throes of a nightmare, as though he fell back _into_ himself, as though—as though—

Aymeric rolled onto his side just in time for his stomach to lurch, but all that escaped him was a dry cough that held fast in his throat, aching deep in his chest. He thanked the Fury for the small blessing that was the preservation of his dignity, given that his company had seen fit to give him his peace after he—

He—

 _By the Twelve_ if he hadn’t had enough of the splitting pain centered in his temples. At least it seemed as though the episodes were growing shorter in length as they grew in number, and that when they finally receded he could _remember…_

Aymeric’s breath caught.

He _remembered._

He was on his feet and stumbling toward the bars of his cell before his thoughts had caught up with the strange, sudden impulse to _flee,_ as though this dim, dark room and the man who had put him in it posed a greater threat than the _invading army_ that amassed at the far end of Ghimlyt—but he caught himself upon them and hissed out a breath, pressing his forehead against the cold metal to collect his thoughts.

“Who are you?”

He knew in a way he could not explain that whatever was _haunting_ him, whatever ghastly presence lurked in corners of his mind he could not reach without his seeming entire _being_ rebelling against him, had not left—‘twas as though he could feel its gaze, the weight of the space it took, perhaps its very aether as an ever-present chill along his spine.

 _Something_ had taken hold of him and bid him dance to its tune. To slaver and bay for the blood of Garlean conscripts—no matter how pitiful their lot, to fight and die for a nation that devours its neighbors and picks its teeth with the bones of their peoples—

To bring death and blood to distant shores by the token of their _craven servitude_ , to subjugate their fellow man for want of the leash and not the axe—

“ _Who are you?_ ” he demanded of the empty air, warned by the turn of his thoughts, by the blighted touch of bloodlust that was not his own. Perhaps it felt alike to the roiling hatred of Nidhogg pressing against the depths of Estinien’s soul—

A tightness in his chest, then, blessedly independent of illness, besieged as he was by harrowing episodes that shunned his control. _This_ was a malady of the heart, the heart that throbbed and beat out of time when he recalled the look on Estinien’s face as Aymeric had betrayed his trust. The twist of disgust in the bow of his mouth, the turn of his back in disappointment—he cannot fault the dragoon for failing to understand the necessity of such violence, charmed as he had been by the sincerity of Aymeric’s ideals afore the raising of Garlean steel tested them so sorely—

Surely he would _hate_ Aymeric for becoming the man that he _must— I must—_

_I need—_

Aymeric was suddenly very, very aware that Hien had been gone too long. That the samurai had left to seek aid from whatever chirurgeons could be spared, though not afore swearing them to secrecy on the matter with which he meant them to aid him ( _Fury bless that man for his discretion_ ).

That every second he came closer to the cell that so entrapped Aymeric.

A bone-deep urgency entered him then, not quite terror but close enough to be mistaken, and with it a terrible certainty that if Hien came upon him like this he would send immediately for Estinien— and Estinien with his _disgust_ and his _disappointment_ would—

He could not stay.

The certainty came upon him as an impenetrable fog, clouding and scattering the meager rationality he had been able to muster to order his thoughts. He felt a sober mind in a drunkard’s body, made merely to _watch_ as his hands relaxed from the cold steel bars, as his feet made distance from them, as the air around him seemed to thicken and shimmer with aether, collecting around him, _drawn_ to him—

 _“What are you doing?”_ he meant to say, but his mouth would not comply. His lips would not part. Instead the words remained in the cavern of his thoughts, there to echo without answer, modulating into the key of self-doubt: _what am_ **_I_ ** _doing?_

The answer, coming to him as if half-remembered from a waking dream:

_I am doing what you would not._

Glimpses, then, of moments unremembered—the tang of blood rich and foul while calls of his name fell upon ears unhearing—

and afore that, the pall of grim certainty that had clutched him, bid him draw steel and make for the battlefield, to stem a tide none other could sense approaching—

afore _that_ the fell hum of crystals in crates, singing sharp in a pitch unheard, as he paced between them and wrung his hands—

for want of a Warrior that would answer—that would _stay—_

_This is why you called me._

The realization, dim and dawning, would have to wait. The hum of aether resonating around and _through_ him had reached a pitch fit to deafen and he _knew_ without cause or reason, _knew_ in a bone-deep truth, that were these bars before him to fail ~~_he_~~ _we would not stop until all of Garlemald lay broken and bleeding at his feet._

_What are you—?_

Home. He emptied his mind and thought of _home,_ of the stifling fire over-stoked by his cold-boned steward, of his cat smug and warmed in the armchair, the empty inkwell and piles of parchment and vellum upon his desk, wan winter light between the curtains and the brisk breeze that heralded Estinien upon the sill unannounced, the better to avoid the looming threat of hobnobbing with nobles on the street below.

And as he immersed himself in a longing for days past, in a longing for the simple certainties of snow in Ishgard and ever-piling work and the softening of the planes of Estinien’s face when shackles of duty fell from their wrists for but a scant handful of hours, the demon that had made a den of his heart howled and spat and grasped for the aether it had wrought, that Aymeric had wrenched from its hateful hands.

He knew naught what to do with it, of course, but he reasoned that _it_ —and _he—_ had to go _somewhere._

Should he not survive the journey… well, such a fate would not be wholly undeserved.

* * *

  
  
  


_He had not taken the news well._

_A gruff-looking Scion with the air of a delinquent—_ Riol, _he was called, who introduced himself as a protégé of sorts of Master Thancred—had brought word to the Alliance that the Warrior of Light meant to follow the trail of the missing Archons unto another_ world. _‘Twas only meet, of course, that she answer the call for her aid, the call of the stranger with whom she had spoken whilst she lay in the Temple Knights’ infirmary, while Aymeric himself sat a door away laboring to convince himself that all was not indeed lost._

 _When Adia had awoken he had been beside himself with relief; he could not have foreseen the nature of_ this _absence, nor its timing—just as rumors began to circulate that Lord Zenos was soon to return to the front…_

_He had seen the beaten, shamed wounds and looks of Commander Hext, of Lady Yugiri, of Lord Hien—if their best fighters were fated to be matched and overmatched by the Ascian in a Garlean prince’s skin, what hope did the rest of the Alliance have?_

_What chance that Adia might yet have a home to return to, when her work on the First had finished?_

_He had told her—told her to leave this fight to_ them, _and he could not bear the thought of—_

_And while he wore grooves into the muddied dirt at Ghimlyt, all the while the crates of crystal catalysts in the chirurgeons’ supply tents quivered and hummed. In a pitch beyond his ken; in a pitch fit to shatter glass._

* * *

  
  
  


His arrival in the Rising Stones is met with a sudden shush of voices, nigh on a dozen pairs of eyes turning upon him as he closes the door behind himself.

He does so with considerably more grace than with which he had opened it; a small crack in one of the bricks of the wall had bloomed as a result of the sharp collision of the door’s knob with rough stone, and the resultant noise had been the impetus for the stares and the silent wariness.

He can’t begrudge the Scions that, after the bloody banquet, he supposes. Takes a while for the jumpiness to go away. He knows from experience.

But Estinien is not of a mind to apologize. So instead he casts a sharp gaze over the assemblage and folds his arms as half of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn fail to meet his eyes.

“I’m looking for Baldesion.”

“Who’s asking?”

The Auri woman at the bar, who had not turned upon his entrance even though the Elezen bartender had nearly jumped out of her skin, is the first to answer his summons; at her elevated voice the others seem to see fit to return to their prior business. Two Roegadyn men, two Hyuran women, a handful of Elezen—and the Auri woman, and a Viera who now stands from her corner table to move closer and listen, abandoning whatever project she had been poring over.

“The Alliance has need of her,” Estinien says blandly. Whoever this woman is, whatever reason she has for raising her hackles at him, she must not be of _grave_ importance—else he would at least have heard of her in Adia’s stories. “Where is your receptionist?” he adds, having taken note of the conspicuous lack of the clever maid. At least _she_ would have greeted him.

“Tataru’s attending the Archons at present,” the Auri woman says, finally setting down her drink and turning, crimson hair shifting over the handle of the greatsword strapped to her back. The sight of her face brings a pinched frown to Estinien’s; the similarities to the Warrior of Light are apparent in the same wide, fanned horns, the same smattering of white freckle-like scales (scale-like freckles? He had never felt them to know). The defiant set to this Scion’s mouth was all her own, however, and the shared features were but a passing observation in the wake of her piercing, white-ringed stare. “So’s Mistress Baldesion, in her own way. What’s the question? If it’s about aetherology, I can help you right now.”

Estinien’s gaze moving from the woman’s face to the handle of her greatsword and back again must have been telling enough of his apprehension, for she folds her arms and turns her gaze to the Viera, rolling her eyes as if in answer to a shared joke. “Ex-arcanist,” she clarifies, looking back at Estinien. “Ahlaina Suhm, at your service.”

“Mistress Suhm,” Estinien says, polite but with the unmistakable tug of irritation, “ _with respect,_ either you tell me where to find Krile Baldesion or I will find her myself.”

Ahlaina seems poised to offer a stinging rebuke, but the gentle touch of her companion’s hand on her armored coat-clad shoulder drives the fight from her. The Viera signs a few quick words, glancing back at Estinien, and Ahlaina huffs and reaches to take a long sip of her stiff drink.

“Mal tells me you’re the Azure Dragoon,” the dark knight says at last, setting the glass back down on the bar. “And that whatever you need, it’s probably deathly serious. So I’ll bite: Krile’s in the ruins of the Sharlayan colony, working with Master Matoya on finding our missing souls. Bit of a trip, but I’ll—where are you going?”

Estinien had already stalked off towards the door, but he pauses halfway down the aisle between tavern tables to toss a withering glance back. “Urgent business, Scion.”

“She lives in a _cave,_ Estinien Wyrmblood,” Ahlaina says loudly. “Do you know how _bleeding many_ caves there are in the Dravanian Hinterlands?”

Estinien glares back at her, and Ahlaina's own glare is redoubled in answer, and the Viera glances between them—and steps into Estinien’s line of sight, the better to claim his attention.

She signs slowly, obviously, a handful of words that Estinien struggles for only a moment to grasp.

_We go with you._

“Fine,” Estinien bites out, and turns around again. “I make for Tailfeather, and I leave at sundown—with or without you.”

“Mal’vela and I will be there,” Ahlaina promises, and just barely, closing the door behind himself as he leaves, Estinien catches the lowly muttered “ _prick.”_

* * *

The shimmering sunset light through his heavy curtains was just as Aymeric remembered it to be. The piles of parchment, the empty inkwell…

Yet in his absence there had been no need to light the fire. Ser Pawvien was elsewhere about the house, no doubt lounging in his other favorite spot in the sitting room. And lastly his window remained firmly shut, as it had since Estinien had disappeared in Azys Lla.

He had had no reason to doubt both Midgardsormr’s and Adia’s accounts of what had transpired there, at the site of his father’s grave, but part of him had yet hoped against hope, had kept to the slimmest chance that Estinien might awake from Nidhogg’s clutches as if from a vivid nightmare, appear on his windowsill hale and whole just as he had so many other times, a sight longer overdue with each incident, as though the very fates conspired to test the depths of their loyalty to one another.

But Estinien did not come.

He did not come on the first night, and he did not come on the second, and on the third Aymeric awoke sweating and reeling from a half-remembered nightmare convinced that a Nidhogg clad in Estinien’s very flesh was mere moments from alighting upon his sill and breathing fire and damnation upon him. He had stumbled to the window and secured the panes firm in their frames, and then fallen back into bed to work himself to completion, driven as he was to heady wetness by the imaginings of fire and teeth and Estinien’s claiming touch.

Aymeric flushed at the recollection, shivered at the thrum low in his stomach—and then started as he finally looked down at himself, having taken notice of the expanse of skin that most certainly did not match what he had been wearing just earlier.

Not a stitch of clothing remained upon him, for weal or for woe. The shackles that had so bound his wrists had left them now bare, and he supposed that in itself was a blessing… but he had not anticipated such an _effect_ when he—

What _had_ he done, for that matter? The manipulation of great magicks had never been a feat that he might attain, struggling as he did with grasping even the most basic of spells… yet whatever he had _done_ to himself (and he could admit and understand this, finally, piecing together the jagged edges of memories that he had prised from the grasp of the abyss) seemed to have _altered his path_ —to put it in the most benign, understated terms.

‘Twas a blessed relief, if nothing else, to have his thoughts be his own. Even if only for the moment, he had proven the fallibility of whatever blighted existence he had welcomed into his mind.

But Aymeric de Borel was not a man to be fooled by the surprise of a respite.

 _It would be back._ The thought came with a chilling certainty. It would be back, and if he were to… _lose control…_ once more upon the fields of Ghimlyt, he feared he might never regain it.

And so he ruminated little upon the plan that came to mind in small, quiet revelations as he moved about his room. Ruminated little, for he felt no terror that could match that of losing his sense of purpose. Of hoping against hope that a solution could be found.

He—he could not speak it aloud. Even alighting upon the word in his mind brought a roiling nausea; how he had feared to become his father, swore to himself in every way and to every end that he would never— _never—_

If—if _summoning_ had been so inconsequential a task that he might have done it on _accident—_

Aymeric hurried about his quarters, clothing himself in cotton under chainmail under leathers, stirred into frantic motion by the looming enormity of just what he had done.

There was no other explanation.

The strange shift toward _murderous whimsy,_ his loss of memory, Estinien’s suspicion, the _aether_ that had responded so readily to him (his other self?)—

Aymeric stumbled to a halt.

The cell.

Meant Estinien to _try_ him, or to _protect_ him?

He had seen the glint of epiphany, of recognition in Estinien’s eyes. Why had he not _told_ him?

Aymeric sighed and shook his head, running a hand through mussed black hair, in _dire_ need of a tending after a day in gaol—but long baths and traded words were not in his near future. Not on the course upon which he had been set.

Perhaps a letter might serve just as well.

Acutely aware that every minute he lingered overlong in his quarters put him at greater risk of discovery by the exactly _two_ members of his staff that had cause to remain even when he was traveling, Aymeric stepped slowly to his desk, in trepidation he could not shake, and sat gingerly within the well-worn chair.

If he closed his eyes he could pretend that Ser Pawvien napped next to his feet, that Estinien amused himself by the fire by oiling his armor and prodding at the embers. That the words he was about to write amounted to precious little of importance compared to the actual _gesture_ of writing them, as so it went with paperwork and the very particular dance of propriety that required correspondence by letter for the most inconsequential of matters…

No longer could he comfort himself by dwelling in dusty memory. He had done far too much of that of late. If all went to plan… if all went as he desired, these may very well be the last letters he would ever write.

The sun sank over the horizon as he finished his somber work, as he replaced his pen in its well, as he folded three leaves of parchment and scribed three names, one to each.

One to Lord Edmont. One to Lucia. And one to Estinien.

He regretted only that he must rely on his staff to discharge this final duty for him, that he could not accomplish the task alone. ‘Twould invite far too many questions, far too many cries of alarm and attempts to dissuade him; hardly could he begrudge his closest allies the attempt, but the time for hand-wringing had long since passed. Now came the tests of his conviction, and he should endeavor to not be seen wanting.

He would not have it said that he cowered from the demands of justice at the last.

There was but one more detail to address before he went on his way.

Naegling had been taken from him when Estinien placed him under lock and key, and he did not desire to infiltrate the forward camp in search of it—nor did he desire to carry it with him now. The shine of adamantite was recognizable at a hundred paces… and the weight of an heirloom left to him by his father—not the archbishop who sired him but the vicomte who _raised_ him—would burden him far beyond what his bowed shoulders could bear.

Were one to ask him, Aymeric would not have an answer for why he had retained this last effect, why it had seemed _necessary_ to do so; he could not say in honesty that he and Zephirin de Valhourdin had ever been _friends,_ but he had held a great deal of respect for the man even as they vied together for the same seat, strove to earn it by word and by deed.

Thordan had seen fit to raise Zephirin higher, and once Aymeric had been surprised—but to know that his father meant to assemble the tools of his subjugation moons, perhaps _years_ before he acted upon it… Zephirin, as so many others, had been used and discarded by the man who would be a god. He had not had even the privilege of dying as himself. When Zephirin slew Lord Haurchefant upon the apex of the Vault it had been his father’s will behind the man’s eyes.

Aymeric wondered—as he hefted Shattered Heart to test its weight, the greatsword’s handle easily accommodating both of his hands along the grip—if Zephirin had been made to watch just as he had, to feel the bloodlust and savage joy of battle in a heart that no longer belonged to him.

Zephirin de Valhourdin had died another man’s puppet, and for both of their sakes, Aymeric thought as he fastened the sword to his back, he would not do the same.

The sensation of aether coalescing around him without an aetheryte to serve as a focus was unfamiliar, but Aymeric had no desire to repeat his escape. The crystal at his destination beckoned to him, affixed itself in his mind, and Aymeric let himself be swept away by the current.

At the last, he could swear he heard the scratch of tiny claws and Ser Pawvien’s forlorn yowling.


	4. philia, part iv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy patchmas eve; sorry for our delay, have a double update to make up for it.
> 
> we hope u enjoy xoxo

The dull roar of thunder is the first awareness that Estinien is granted when he stumbles out of the teleport to Tailfeather, any sense of balance and rightness yanked right out from under him by the dizzying sensation of being pulled apart at the seams and stitched together again.

Fury’s heaving  _ tits  _ he hates traveling this way.

Leave it to adventurers to necessitate by far the  _ most  _ unpleasant means of travel, even over a fortnight on chocoback that would leave him bow-legged and shuffling, by demanding to  _ accompany  _ him. Scions or no, he detests hangers-on, especially when they seem to serve no purpose but their own.

The thunder drums again, and Estinien looks up from counting his fingers to make sure they all made the journey to map the trajectory of the dark front of stormclouds brewing on the eastern horizon.

Maybe a bell before the storm front rolled over the open wastes of the Forelands. Too fast to beat by walking, and he has no desire to wait out the rain in the hunters’ camp. But the birds Marcechamp and his fellows keep are trapped or raised for sale, not for lending out to hapless passersby. There’s the chocobokeep, but he has a hunch that whatever cave the Baldesion woman saw fit to frequent isn’t on the list of approved destinations.

The camp is quiet, Estinien notices then, casting a glance over the small handful of people yet outside, tightening up fastenings and tending to distressed birds ahead of the storm.

Quiet until the clatter of a door slamming into its jamb; Estinien watches as the Viera Scion departs Marcechamp’s quaint little hut and strides across the bridge into the plaza, there to bend her head in conversation with her Auri companion.

She doesn’t speak, he knows, but the clipped and hurried gesticulations of her hands say enough about her mood. Estinien’s sours, not that it had much further to go—whatever she had been trying to argue with the hunter, evidently he had not been receptive.

The Au Ra points up at the sky, at the welling onslaught of clouds, and another handful of hurried words, spoken and signed, are exchanged before the Viera straightens her head, squares her shoulders, and marches off to Marcechamp’s again.

Estinien watches Ahlaina watch her go, the short but stalwart woman folding her arms to hide the restless energy that arises from watching things being decided without her input, and he is not fond of how familiar the sight is to him, nor how his muscles bunch and tense in the same rigid stillness as if in sympathy.

He shrugs off the lingering waves of nausea and stalks over to the companion he doesn’t wish to keep; he means to give her an ultimatum, to inform her of his imminent departure with or without some Scions in tow as he doesn’t have  _ time  _ to stand about wringing his hands in Tailfeather because he is traveling without the Warrior of Light’s exceptional talent for getting exactly what she wants—

“Mal grew up here,” Ahlaina says before he can speak, and Estinien’s mouth snaps shut with an audible click.

“The hunters aren’t terribly generous people,” he rebuts, his eyes narrowing as Ahlaina sags back to lean against the wall of a building facing the aetheryte plaza.

“We know,” she answers, expression dark under the crimson locks that hang in front of her face. There’s an angry tilt to her mouth, a crease to her eyebrows that never leaves, and Estinien’s thankful for that, because it sets her apart from Adia where the strikingly similar planes of their faces do not.

It’s a slump of defeat tucked behind a guise of stubborn rejection, and in that they’re different too. Estinien has seen clear through to Adia’s soul through blue-ringed eyes, has seen the pull of her heart lead her in earnest to folly and ruin, and yet she—

_ She’s not here,  _ he has to remind himself. She’s not here, and it’s his job now to do what she would have, with him or no:

chase the trail of their Lord Commander unto the very ends of the world if they must, and hang the consequences.

The question, however, of what there is to be done  _ after _ the accomplishment of this task… is beyond his ken to answer.

Ahlaina has been staring at him and he doesn’t know for how long. Estinien narrows his eyes at her in lieu of surprise; his thoughts had gotten away from him, ‘tis true, but Estinien Wyrmblood does not get  _ embarrassed  _ about staring at a Scion whilst he daydreams about another Scion—

Gods forbid this one has the Echo, too. Though from the annoyed tilt to her brows Estinien can hope that she has no idea what’s going on in his head. Just the way he likes it.

“Hey,” Ahlaina snaps, and there’s an edge to it that Estinien recognizes—self-consciousness. “Can I help you?”

Estinien debates asking her about Adia. Not that he doesn’t have enough of an understanding of the Warrior of Light already; he’s seen enough of her stretched to her limits to know the seams are bursting with the hopes sewn in.

Indicating his interest in the dynamic of Adia’s would-be handlers could invite speculation he did not seek or envy.

Estinien sets his jaw and looks away across the plaza, meeting eyes along the way with a hunter who quickly ducks away back to his work, and eventually his gaze comes to settle upon the stone arch that marks the trail to Tailfeather, beyond which stretch the boughs of the Chocobo Forest.

Where one such bird is standing, looking directly back at him.

He is striding away unheeding of the scoff his cryptic silence has earned him, wondering why he feels drawn by the pull of familiarity to the strangely still chocobo, to its well-oiled but unattended barding, to its plumage the color of stormclouds and ash, when he recalls just to whom the chocobo belongs.

“Cloud,” he mutters, the chocobo’s name just a vague recollection—his time sharing minds with Nidhogg had quite muddied some of the finer points of the… of the end of the war—but the bird warks in agreement and plants the curve of its brow against his shoulder.

Estinien Wyrmblood is no good at petting chocobos, but for the Warrior of Light’s trusted companion he may as well try. So he fits the tips of careful fingers just under the side of Cloud’s head and scratches gently at the plumes there, and from the flutter of flightless wings he judges the bird’s enjoyment.

Adia had said that Cloud could fend for himself—a claim Estinien had no reason to doubt—but a handful of the gysahl greens he had just recently acquired disappear down a feathered gullet with preternatural haste.

How came the Warrior of Light’s chocobo to Tailfeather? If his recollections served she had not been west of Ishgard in some time, and the poor thing would have had to wander all the way through the desolate snowfields of the Western Highlands…

“Good, you have a bird,” Ahlaina says behind him, and Estinien grunts a crisp affirmation before he deigns to turn to her, one hand still idly scritching Cloud at the jaw.

Mal’vela is a bit behind her partner, coaxing two chocobos towards the road with a bundle of gysahl greens, two pairs of reins in her hand. She looks practiced in their handling, even if their acquisition had seemed to cause her some difficulty.

Estinien looks down to meet the eyes of the Au Ra who stands waist high to him, taking notice of her folded arms and jutting chin as she looks between him and Cloud. Whatever opinion she has on Estinien stumbling upon the Warrior of Light’s chocobo is kept mercifully to herself as she shrugs her armored shoulders and tosses wavy crimson hair back.

“We’ve wasted enough time here,” she announces, pivoting on one heel to mount up on one of the Tailfeather birds, and as Estinien hefts himself into Cloud’s narrow saddle (he needed a bird and Adia’s bird turned up, and he is not wont to ponder any further than believing it a happy accident or mayhap one of the Fury’s own good turns) he catches sight of Mal’vela leaning down to receive of a peck on the lips and a handful of muttered words from her tetchy partner.

Ahlaina’s gaze slides to Estinien while she centers herself in the saddle after the gesture, but he has already turned away, pressing heels to Cloud’s flanks to set him to trotting and thinking very hard upon how to stop thinking about white freckles and white scales and the bow of a tight-lipped and smiling mouth.

* * *

The world shifted back into existence around Aymeric as a lurching smear. In a blur of light and aether, he found himself in the thick of the Ghimlyt front, blessedly without much noise or spectacle and none nearby to witness it. A massive airship landing, it seemed, played backdrop to his return, with a massive cliff face at his back and another sheer drop before him. The horizon flattened to the north and east of his perch, promising an easier trek into Garlean territory than the Garleans had in mounting the attack on Ghimlyt in the first place. Magitek could only have given them so much of an advantage.

Adia had fought here, he realized. Had fought the Garlean conscripts and emerged victorious, as was her wont. He had fought as well, of course, at her side though elsewhere and against other adversaries. But even seeing her across the field slinging spells from her tome was like glimpsing a comet in the night sky. Knowing he was fighting alongside her, even several degrees removed, lent an entirely new vigor to the cause.

Her legacy may have continued to live in the air of her previous battlefields, in the minds and hearts of those she protects, but it was in these instances where her absence was most keenly felt.

Remembering her meant remembering that she was gone.

Bearing the Alliance patrol schedules in mind, beneath the current of his single-minded focus, he made his way further towards the enemy occupation. This far from the base encampment, most of the soldier patrols were more towards the efforts of espionage prevention and keeping an eye on the enemy line. The scars of a hard-fought victory still tarnished the land, between smoke plumes from piles of rubble and bodies and disabled magitek equipment. Aymeric had no mind for it but to traverse around it, covertly enough to not draw attention and inconspicuous enough to not draw questions from those who have chanced to see him.

He navigated the terrain with an almost instinctual ease, instinct he could not say he possessed before he realized that something was happening to him. Something was  _ changing _ him, on a fundamental level. An aetherial level. And that scared him more than any of the other aspects of his  _ purpose _ . For all the mysteries he chalked up to aether nonsense, a field he always felt so far beyond his ken, they began to mount ever higher in recent days.

_ But what does it matter, with the stakes set so high? _

He was grateful for its existence, at any rate, for it made his goals all the more attainable. Though it felt part of him, natural as the bones beneath his flesh, a part of it seemed distinctly  _ other _ in ways that were made evident when a foreign voice entered his head or when seemingly prophetic images came crashing into his consciousness unbidden. And  _ whatever _ it was also served to dispatch the fear that would have otherwise immobilized him. With it, he could take comfort in knowing his instincts would lead him towards his goal, towards Garlemald’s brutal fall. By his hand.

For her. In her stead. So she could return to a world with no work left to do but pick up the pieces and rebuild in her own image.

_ Who can you trust if not yourself? _

“Ser Aymeric!”

A not-so distant shout shattered his introspection and sent him stumbling over a jagged piece of scrap metal. He turned to the source of the noise to see a young Hyur soldier, from Gridania if his uniform was honest, scouting the line for any enemy treachery to report back to Kan-e-Senna. “Ser! Pardon my interruption, Ser, I don’t mean to distract from your mission, I-I’m sure it’s very important! I just—What you did in that battle was so inspiring!”

Aymeric blinked and his eyelids showed him a blind rage, swaths of enemies cut down in a single swipe of a sapphire blade. The unquestionable  _ start _ to all this.

The moment he knew for certain what was required of him to end this war.

“Old Glenn and some of the others were calling you the new Warrior of Light, you know! And I think they’re right! Who else could take down all those damned Garleans like that?” He laughed and shifted his weight on his feet, but Aymeric felt nothing but the overwhelming urge to flee. “I won’t keep you long, Ser, I know the Alliance was searching for you and I’m sure your mission is important— but I just wanted to thank you for everything, Ser! We haven’t been this hopeful in so long! Thank you!”

With a single curt nod of his head, Aymeric turned and took his speechless leave.

The magitek wreckage grew more prominent as he continued forward, sprawling structures and jagged shrapnel shaping the land around him. Save the other patrols, not a breathing soul lingers in this war-torn wasteland. And even those soldiers grew scarce; the Alliance front stopped, and the Garlean line began.

_ Closer to our goal. _

But… Among his many titles, he did not think  _ Warrior of Light _ among them. And while it was true that Adia was gone, for now, those shoes were not in need of new feet to pilot them. And even if they were… Why would he fill that role? For simply cutting down soldiers before him as wheat in a field? For following instinct and doing what the Alliance worked so tirelessly towards? For merely doing his duty?

And the  _ reduction _ of Adia’s title to that of one who merely defeats Garleans was more of an affront than anything else. That they think her nothing but a weapon to point at their enemies was— not a  _ novel _ concept, of course, but one that boiled his blood like little else could.

_ No, _ he thought, a resolute denial.  _ I am not her. I do not need to be her. It is enough to strive to end this war, and hope that she returns to a world worth saving. _

Nearly half an hour passed with no Alliance soldiers in sight before he heard another voice call out his name — albeit more familiar than last time — as its owner made her approach.

He turned to face her, frozen still, searching for an escape.

“Lady Yugiri.”

* * *

As they ride the thunder rumbles behind them like the ominous thrumming of ceruleum engines and, thus reminded, Estinien is uncomfortably forced to confront the reality of the situation.

It had been far, far too easy to lapse into the relative simplicity of the journey he had taken together with the Warrior of Light and Lady Iceheart. When naught concerned him but the completion of his appointed task—not even the sordid history of which Ysayle tried again and again to apprise him could distract him from exacting the vengeance he so craved. For ultimately the circumstances were  _ immaterial— _ righteous or not, Nidhogg’s crusade had to be ended, and it would be by  _ his  _ hand; hang the consequences, for what mattered was the deed, not what befell him in its doing.

Once he had lamented the Eye’s choosing. An orphan with naught to care for in Ishgard, he had called himself, and mayhap it had been true then... or mayhap he had so desperately  _ wanted  _ it to be true. To be free, when the time came, to destroy himself and the wyrm both—to put to an end two pitiful creatures steeped in hatred and baying for blood. It  _ should  _ have been true, once he learned the truth of Alberic’s secrets, of Ferndale, but…

Well.

The Lord Commander had all but exemplified his preternatural capacity for finding what scar tissue remained of hearts under plates of armor.

A chill blows through Estinien remembering the look of Aymeric, blood-spattered and impassive, his thirst for the lives of Garleans frightening in its sincerity, so single-minded that not even Estinien could give the lie to it; he knows Aymeric better than he knows the grip of his lance and whatever had been inside him that day, whatever is  _ still  _ inside him, is  _ not him  _ no matter how it walks and talks and looks and  _ feels  _ like him.

And whatever is in there had just absconded with his friend’s body.

Which brings Estinien to  _ here,  _ riding clear across the realm in the other direction in search of a way to  _ find him,  _ because the portion of his heart that had tugged toward Ishgard even over continents and oceans, that had tugged him  _ home,  _ spun in circles like a bad compass searching for true north.

He can see the lightning in his peripheral vision now, and Cloud’s flanks heave beneath his thighs; they’ve been pushing the birds  _ hard  _ for at least a bell, the wind soaring by too loud to speak, but when he glances to his right he spies Ahlaina with the same pinched frown on her face that he’s sure he wears, calculating the gain of the storm against their unsustainable speed against the distance between them and the narrow mountain trail towards the northwest that marks safety.

Or does it? If the storm is a heavy downpour it might wash out the path, leaving them stranded without suitable shelter besides whatever rocky outcropping might serve—

A mighty roar splits the rushing air and as one the trio of unlikely companions twists in their saddles, their gazes dragged up and up to the rolling cliff of thunderclouds.

Like a dart from a bow  _ something  _ pierces it, exploding out from the mass of grey and thunder with vapours trailing it like a streak of charcoal upon the canvas of the sky, and the great winged shape of a dragon crosses over them as a shadow.

Estinien is already fisting back Cloud’s reins, dragging the bird to a halt, as the two borrowed chocobos let out terrified  _ wark _ s and dig their talons into soft earth to backpedal—natives of the Chocobo Forest have such instincts when a dragon spirals down toward them, and though both Estinien and Cloud undoubtedly recognize the muscular shape neither the rentals nor their riders have reason to.

Vidofnir plants herself across the road with another roar, customary of dragons of her size and build, though the gesture is wont to cause more confusion than it already has.

From the corner of his eye he sees Ahlaina’s hand reaching for her weapon, and Mal’vela beside her undoubtedly doing the same, so Estinien urges Cloud forward a few paces to the front of their motley ensemble and sticks out his hand to halt them.

“This is hardly an opportune time, Vidofnir,” he says by way of greeting, his teeth clenched and his jaw set.

Though the actions were not his own, he has not forgotten the circumstances of their last meeting. Has not forgotten the grimly satisfying give of scaled hide and flesh ‘neath his lance as Nidhogg made of Estinien’s wretched form a mockery of a valiant dragoon.

Has not forgotten the splatter of blood upon Aymeric’s peace, and all that came after.

“Ah,” Vidofnir says, her voice the same echoing, gravelly rumble he remembers from treating with her, from  _ threatening  _ her to the chagrin of all else in attendance. “I had wondered what mortal thought to race the skies and win.”

Though her words are critical, her voice is light, and Estinien waits for the dragon to make her point, even as Ahlaina behind him clears her throat.

Whatever the Auri woman had meant to say is lost as Vidofnir flares her wings, shifts, and settles again, speaking with the calm certainty that she will be heard. “Take shelter at Anyx Trine. The coming storm shall be strong but short; waste not thine strength weathering it alone.”

Estinien follows the tilt of her head with his eyes; she had stopped them just afore the fork of the path, where the stones rose with the swell of the earth toward the tower that stood but a half-malm to the north. How  _ fortuitous. _

Every ilm in his body cries out in refusal:  _ there is no time.  _ Every moment he wastes pushes Aymeric further out of reach and he is already warring with his base instincts in going  _ the other way _ to plead for help he does not want to need. He bristles with the stiff dismissal that rises in his throat, prepared to press on even amidst a downpour, and if his  _ chaperones  _ disagree he will simply leave them behind.

“We accept your invitation,” Ahlaina says, having paused to confer with Mal’vela (who looks directly at him over the shorter woman’s head, as if reading his thoughts—as she had  _ better not be,  _ gift or no). Fine. He will leave them here; caves the Hinterlands may have aplenty, but he is accomplished enough in the art of tracking, and there are always the looser tongues in Idyllshire he may ply with enough coin.

Just as he is about to tap heels to Cloud’s flanks, Vidofnir affixes him with her piercing gaze, uncomfortably alike to Mal’vela’s.

“And thee, dragoon. I would know what has befallen our warrior of warriors.”

He meets her stare ilm for ilm. “How should I know?” he snaps, because the fact is that he  _ doesn’t,  _ not nearly as much as he desires. Only what the Alliance, what the Scions had deemed fit to tell him; meant they to leave him to languish in ignorance after plucking her from the jaws of death?  _ Aymeric  _ had seen her sooner than he had, and—

“‘Tis not  _ any  _ will her trusted companion obeys,” Vidofnir explains, glancing to Cloud who lets out a chirp of acknowledgement; clever bird, this one, and Estinien should have  _ known  _ that he would be as precocious as his master.

So she sought to help him even now, when he could not do the same for her. When he could not do the same for  _ anyone:  _ not Aymeric, not Adia, least of all himself.

“She fights,” he says, his jaw aching with the strain of his temper held under his tongue. “For those who cannot fight for themselves. We’ve plenty of those, I’ve found.”

“Come.” Vidofnir jerks her serpentine head to the hill, and a peal of thunder rings in the sudden silence, reminding them of the threat that looms behind. “I sense there is more to your tale.”

Unheeding of Estinien’s hands upon his reins, Cloud starts forward, pointing beak-first up the slope though Estinien tries again and again to wrangle him westward. Sharing a glance behind him, the movement evident in his peripheral vision, Ahlaina and Mal’vela turn their birds the same way, though both quake and stall until Vidofnir takes again to the sky, the downdraft from her wide wings only a precursor to the storm that swift approaches.

To Anyx Trine, then, Estinien thinks.

Again to the demesne of dragons, to which fate finds ways to draw him at near every fork and turn.


	5. philia, part v

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi again. here's the second half of the double update.
> 
> thanks for your patience, and enjoy the patch! xoxo

“Ser, I’ve been meaning to thank you for your efforts in that battle. You saved a great many of my Shinobi who would have otherwise fallen to treachery.”

_ Again _ with the thanks. Aymeric nodded as his panic mounted higher; a simple, nameless soldier was easy enough to dodge, but how could he slip from the grasp of Lord Hien’s right hand? And she would no doubt report seeing him to the rest of the Alliance upon her return, and the rest of them have more than enough sway to pull his mission to a screeching halt.

Would she call him a Warrior of Light as well?

“Of course,” he said, for lack of a more intelligent response.

“But, I apologize, Ser… The Alliance has been searching for you, Lord Hien requested I keep an eye for you as I patrol the line.” She squinted in his direction, scrutinizing, and it only heightened Aymeric’s urge to flee. “They will be pleased to hear you’re safe, and nearby at that.”

Aymeric took two steps back, away, an instinctual avoidance of— of what? Of Yugiri, a trusted ally? Of the Alliance, in mere concept? Of going back to them and facing whatever consequences await him for the crime of  _ desertion _ —

“Unless you find yourself unsafe,” Yugiri said, each word measured and precise, “or with intention to not remain nearby.”

His stomach dropped. That urge to flee doubled,  _ tripled _ and he knew the only thing keeping him from breaking into a full sprint towards Garlemald was the modicum of professionalism and social decorum his logical brain so adamantly told him to maintain. Aymeric took a step, another, putting a breadth between them that he knew wasn’t enough but it was  _ something _ to relieve the stifling tension in his chest.

“This is not solely your fight, Ser,” Yugiri said as she tried to close the distance Aymeric gained. “And while I know Adia would venture to fight this alone were she here, she would seek guidance at the very least. The Scions—”

**_No._ ** _ They’ll take me away from you and I’ll not suffer to lose you again. _

The cold stone floor of a gaol. The clinking of chains. Estinien’s steadfast disapproval— of  _ him, _ for his many mounting failures. A void within his head to be filled, empty darkness where there would soon be  _ something. _

The outburst and the flashes of memory jolted Aymeric into motion; he backed a few further steps away from Yugiri, towards the horizon, before turning into a full brisk walk away.

“Ser,  _ please,” _ she emphasized with a hand at his wrist, slowing his escape, an earnest plea.

_ Please, Aymeric. _

It was nothing to pull his arm free of her grip and continue on his way without a single glance back. It only redoubled her efforts; footsteps sounded from behind and around him until she stood before him, brows set in a resolute line, hands on the hilts of her blades.

“I will only stop you if I must. You owe the Alliance an explanation for your absence at the very least.”

_ They won’t understand. We have a job to do and they are not part of it. Not this. _

Aymeric’s sole response was silence. How could he give word to the instincts driving him onward? How could he qualify such a drive? Instead, he drew Shattered Heart and held it at his side, not outwardly threatening yet ready to defend himself if necessary. Blade in hand and heart and mind set, he continued his grim march forward, towards his goal beyond Yugiri’s obstructing form.

She drew her blades in a more offensive stance and further closed the distance between them. Aymeric raised Shattered Heart and with a handful of strides they met in the middle. Yugiri lunged for his legs, below his center of gravity, but after so many nights of training with Adia’s small stature, he knew full well the weaknesses of a height advantage, and knew to adjust his stance accordingly. Though simultaneously he knew how skilled a fighter Yugiri was, to have escaped Doma after acting as Lord Hien’s right hand when such an action would have gotten her killed by Garleans or worse.

He certainly had his work cut out for him, to escape the altercation and continue on his way to Garlemald unimpeded.

So he thought.

Yugiri darted forward with her knives raised and Aymeric dodged out of the way. She was quick to adjust her momentum to carry her the rest of the distance, but the extra time gave Aymeric the opportunity to raise his blade, though he did so with the blunt edge in her direction, purely for the purposes of defense. That he has to brandish his blade against an ally — a  _ comrade _ — is objectionable enough in and of itself; doing so with the intent to harm is unthinkable, even for the sake of defense. She attempted to adjust around his stance but with a grunt and a blur of motion, he used the flat of his blade to throw her to the ground beyond him.

_ Behind _ him. Leaving a clear way out.

She rolled to a halt in the grime and they both watched each other in a quiet moment of shock. Aymeric  _ shouldn’t _ have been able to so summarily cast her aside. Yugiri’s skill in fighting surpassed his own by leaps and bounds and he had been prepared for a struggle, prepared to  _ lose _ and be dragged back to the Alliance like a runaway mutt.

But they blinked at each other, as a breath spanned the distance and time between them. Shocked, at Aymeric’s newfound strength, at his conviction, at his blatant disobedience.

“I’m sorry.”

With that, Aymeric turned on his heels and made his escape, a mad dash for the smoke plumes he saw rising towards the skies stained with sunset reds and oranges. With luck, they would be campfires around which he would find more enemies to cut down, and without, more wreckage, but either way would take him closer to Garlemald, closer to Varis, closer to the end of this bloody war. Behind him he could hear the faint click of a linkpearl, still motionless on the ground, and a dumbfounded voice as she spoke.

“My lord. He makes for Garlemald.”

* * *

When the rain begins it is with a single droplet that plants itself square on Estinien’s scalp. Blessedly they are but films from the cover of the main tower, and shadow overtakes them only lightly spattered with rain whilst the bare stones outside grow dark with the clouds’ fallen burden.

Last he had been here, mayhap a half-dozen to a dozen dragons resided within the spire. He can sense now close to two score, many of them pups, though only Vidofnir awaits them on the lowest level, where a poorly maintained yet functional aetheryte lazily spins.

Mal’vela signs something to Vidofnir, slipping from the back of her bird, and apparently the gesture is close to universal, for Vidofnir chuffs in approval. “Dragons have no need of such things, child. It is thine, as it has ever been man’s to use.”

Ah. Asking permission to attune to it, then.

Ahlaina dismounts as well, the smaller chocobo immediately trotting forward to cozy up to its partner, raising its wings and fluffing its pluimage to dry, and Estinien watches the two adventurers—Scions they may be, but the two were far from exclusive—do just what adventurers did in a new place.

Vidofnir pads over to Estinien and Cloud with gentle thumps and the soft clicking of claws upon stone, and Estinien finishes feeding him another bunch of greens before he turns to their impromptu host.

“Vidofnir,” he says haltingly; for all his pilgrimage had done to lighten his heart he is still unsure of  _ this,  _ unsure of how to twist words around the complicated web of emotions that sat in his chest. “At Falcon’s Nest—”

“The only tragedy there,” she rumbles, fixing him with her ruby red eyes, “was thine, dragoon. Full glad am I to see that Adia succeeded in her task.”

Estinien swallows. Their stubbornness and tenacity never fail to surprise him; Alphinaud’s, Aymeric’s, Adia’s.

And, if the testimony of Adia’s tired eyes and mind was to be believed, he owes his life to two others. Stalwart companions he had not properly appreciated, that had risked everything and surrendered all for the duties they had deemed worthy.

For the  _ people  _ they had deemed worthy.

“As am I,” he rasps, his throat suddenly raw, as raw as it had felt when he first awakened in a white-sheeted cot with Alphinaud’s misty eyes looming over him.

Vidofnir’s neck stretches forward, and she bumps the tip of her snout against Cloud’s beak. “When this little one trotted off,” she says while he bumps her happily back and flaps his wings, “I had thought Adia come to visit. It seems he is attuned to thee, as well. Tell me; what hath occurred in the lands of men? To our kind, moons pass as moments, while by thine hand the world changes swiftly.”

Estinien is hardly the best man for the job, he knows, but he supposes he will suffice in the absence of the other candidates he would have chosen—the one who battled Eorzea’s enemies, and the one who held at his disposal all of the intelligence of the Alliance.

So he selects a stretch of wall to bear his leaning weight, and begins to tell the story: the story of the liberation of Ala Mhigo, and the war that came after. In broad strokes, of course, of the events as he understands them, having borne witness to precious little between jaunts to the Far East (a circumstance which he now regrets, knowing what he knows presently of Adia’s disappearance), concluding with the state of the front as it stands—or had stood before he left.

Vidofnir listens quietly and thoughtfully, only rumbling low in her chest with approval at the final destruction of Nidhogg’s accursed eyes. The wyrm’s hateful legacy had hung over more than Ishgard and the Horde; Hraesvelgr’s brood had suffered, too, as men confused friend for foe, were slayed and were slain.

Though when Estinien finishes his telling and pauses to breathe and to think, she chuffs in objective speculation. “Thou didst not speak of thine purpose here, dragoon. Whence came thee to Dravania, when thine enemies rally to the east?”

Estinien frowns. He had not… he had not come equipped to explain himself to anyone that  _ knew  _ him, that knew the list of his priorities was truly quite short. It had not been difficult to pretend to the Scions that his task was appointed to him and not as deeply personal, as raw and  _ festering  _ a wound, to have been abandoned not once but  _ twice,  _ to have a man he considered both an anchor and a charge stolen away from him to leave him adrift having failed in the duty of a protector—

His lance had thirsted only for vengeance, for slaughter, and mayhap he is capable of naught else.

Vidofnir’s head cocks to the side as she regards Estinien’s silence. “Then it concerneth the Lord Commander,” she guesses, and Estinien  _ knows _ the speed at which he straightens is a confession.

“He is,” Estinien begins, turning words in his mouth until he settles on the ones that are forthcoming and informative enough without betraying the depths of his  _ terror, _ the feeling that boils his heart in his blood whilst he crosses his arms and guards against the perception of it, “ _ missing.  _ Ishgard has—Eorzea has need of him, and thus I make for the Hinterlands to beg aid in locating him.”

“Dost thou not trust in his reasoning?” Vidofnir is too inquisitive for his tastes, but he cannot discount the chance that she might grant aid in this endeavor he sorely needed.

“He gave none,” Estinien confesses. “Not to me, at the least.” It’s these words that burn his lips and tongue to speak; it  _ must  _ be something else in possession of Aymeric, for to countenance that he is undeserving of his friend’s confidence... is infinitely more painful.

“Then he is not himself,” the dragon replies, and the certainty of her statement twists something in Estinien’s chest, for her to interpret such a thing from what little she knows. “As thou wert not.”

That—

The comparison makes Estinien stumble in the step he had taken away from the wall.

‘Tis not only the fear that whatever holds Aymeric in thrall might mean his friend ill—he had grown far too familiar with the gnawing worry that encroached upon his every waking thought—but that the fear, the uncertainty that so grips Estinien…

Had  _ this  _ been what festered in the hearts of his friends?

Had he then  _ abandoned  _ them to this feeling as he absconded to wander alone with his wounds?

“Or mayhap,” Vidofnir continues, having apparently not finished with the world-tilting observations, “he is alike to Ysayle, making peace with purpose granted by a conjured god.”

Estinien had caught himself on a rocky outcrop of the half-ruined wall, and his hand tightens around it now, beset with a complexity of emotion he cannot name.

Vidofnir seems to pause, then rumbles low in her chest. “Mere flights of fancy. I am become my sire, it seems. ‘Tis all but certain thou hast little cause to fear, dragoon; the love thou bearest for one another, and the Warrior besides, is a power of its own. A bitter chasm divides us, yet the war hath ended—by the hearts that love thee dear. Too dear to make their peace with parting.”

Estinien has no further words for her, no words he can dredge up from the spring of emotion Vidofnir’s words had dug into him. He cannot even look her in the eye; judging from him a tacit dismissal, Vidofnir chuffs and takes wing, stirring the air as the storm outside does not.

True to her word, the thunder outside is soon to lull, and the Scions make their return from the stairs at the north end of the room, having spent the intervening time getting to know the residents of Anyx Trine; when they make their way across the aetheryte-lit antechamber, they find Estinien at its entrance, staring mutely across the stormy horizon—and surrounded by fragments of shattered stones, strewn victims of a silent tempest that brews within an armored heart.

**Author's Note:**

> [the book club](https://discord.gg/8PqfwX4) may give you brainworms but at least they're the fun kind.


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